Meet Chord: the commerce-as-a-service (CaaS) software intended to empower teams to build deeper and richer commerce experiences.
HQ: New York, NY
Founders: Co-Founders Bryan Mahoney (CEO) and Henry Davis (Chairman & COO) were former Glossier executives and D2C founders who witnessed first-hand the challenges entrepreneurs faced launching brands into an increasingly competitive market.
The problem: It’s widely known that consumer experience drives brand loyalty, and one of the biggest drivers of brand loyalty comes from building a community via an online presence. In the past, expensive proprietary code or one-size-fits-all solutions have been the only options for e-commerce businesses. With the pandemic’s explosion of e-commerce, consumers are expected to maintain higher e-commerce activity than pre-pandemic levels, and those options no longer cut it.
Insert Chord: Chord is the only data-first, API-first, complete commerce stack as a product. The company offers sophisticated technology and data products to access meaningful first-party customer data and offers a cost-effective way to move to headless commerce technology. This enables entrepreneurs and fast-growing D2C brands to enhance their business and avoid the heavy and disproportionately expensive technical lift required to create unique customer experiences, the challenges of accessing and using proprietary data, and the ever-increasing cost of customer acquisition and retention.
Why we’re investing: With peak levels of outdoor activity and retail sales posted in Q1-22, brand merchandising and a pathway into D2C are the perfect areas to navigate and experiment with via venture investing. Chord represents a best-in-class solution that enables sales, amplifies growth and drives consumer insights for both our Corporate Partner’s family brands, as well as companies in our investment pipeline.
Further Reading: Platform As A Service Chord Solves Commerce Problem For Brands With Modern Technology Stack (Forbes) | Chord Connects New Funding to Predictive Commerce Metrics So Brands Can Grow (TechCrunch) | Customers Want What DTC 3.0 Can Offer (Forbes)
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